Podcast – Highlights from the Year, 2021 Round-up

Adam Smith:

Hello, and welcome to the Dementia Researcher Podcast, and season’s greetings. It’s that time of year when we put out a special show of highlight clips, just to give everybody a couple of weeks off. 2021 has been another year of highs and lows, but despite the challenges, it’s been wonderful to be able to continue to bring researchers together to discuss their work, and of course, careers advice.

Adam Smith:

2021 has been wonderful for partnerships too. We’ve worked with the National Center for Research Methods, Alzheimer’s Association, and many of the great partners to bring you news. But what continues to blow us away is the amazing engagement we get from all of you, the listeners. The Dementia Researcher Podcast is now a regular in over 60 countries, and this year should see us hit over a 100,000 downloads. Of course, all of this is only possible thanks to the National Institute for Health Research, Alzheimer’s Research UK, and our other partner, the Alzheimer’s Society. I’d also like to thank our fantastic colleagues at University College London, and of course, all of our contributors and guests on the show.

Adam Smith:

Next year, we’re going to be back and mixing up the format to ensure we regularly cover all topics you enjoy. We’re also going to introduce some new themes, and hopefully, COVID allowing, make sure that we’re recording back in the studio and at live events. So thank you again for listening. Have a great festive season and a Happy New Year. Enjoy our highlights real and some narrated blog high highlight shows we’ll be sharing over Christmas. We’ll be back on the 3rd of January.

Dr. Clarissa Giebel:

I’m Clarissa Giebel, and I’m delighted to be here today and host the show for the first time. Briefly introducing myself, I’m a research fellow at the University of Liverpool and the National Institute of Health Research, a polite research collaboration of West Coast, which is a amountful. And my research is exploring how we can then enable people living with dementia live well and independently in the community for longer. Recently, this has heavily involved a COVID 19 focus. In today’s podcast, we will be discussing COVID 19 and care homes, including national and international research and clinical work, as well as direct experiences of having a loved one with dementia, living in a care home during this pandemic. Adam, about your experiences about care home staff.

Dr. Adam Gordon:

Well, I’ve been working with care home staff for a decade, so I have largely a positive view of care home staff and the dedication and skill that they bring to their day to day work. And I think that one of the things that I have continually been impressed with over my long period of time of working with staff in the sector is how they put resident care at the center of their sort of ethos. And so, the big question when we first started looking at these new technologies was, could they do something to transform and improve resident care during the pandemic? And the answer is, well, yes, they could. First of all, they could help to protect residents from COVID. And secondly, they could help re-open parts of the care home sector to things like visiting and the minute the care home staff heard that they were very keen to get involved to try out these new innovative technologies, so I think, I’m a big fan of the care home sector and the staff that work in it.

Dr. Clarissa Giebel:

Okay, great. Thank you. Ramona. What about the experiences from the Netherlands? So I know you’ve recently published while you were one of the co-authors of a long-term care COVID report on safe visiting with international collaborators. Could you tell us a bit more about that?

Dr Ramona Backhaus:

Well, let me start with that situation. To give you just a short background. If we talk about nursing homes’ accounts in the Netherlands, there are about 115,000 residents that are currently living there and about 270,000 staff members who are taking care of these residents. And most of the residents suffer from dementia or as cognitive diseases and a smaller part, suffer strong somatic diseases. But yeah, only the most trail people enter a nursing home in the Netherlands. And what we saw in February and March, the whole pandemic started in the Netherlands. So I think in February, at the end of February, the first infections popped up. And what we saw in March at the twenties of March is that there was a whole blank visitor ban. So people were not allowed to leave the nursing homes or visitors were not allowed to enter, and that then took for two months.

Dr Ramona Backhaus:

And in May, the Dutch Ministry of Health wanted to start a pilot in which they wanted to experiment. What would happen if you open or reopen the homes for visitors and together with colleagues from the University of Wageningen, it’s another Dutch university. The ministry asked us to monitor this whole process. So what we did is, at the 11th of May a selection of nursing homes, 26 homes, they are all spread across the Netherlands were allowed to visit under, through open for visitors under very strict conditions. For example, all the homes were not allowed to have any COVID infection to participate in that pilot, the organization should have protocols available that clearly regulate how a visit should look like. There was one person per resident who was allowed to enter the nursing home once a week. So the conditions were very strict. You could also think about different hygiene measures that were taken into consideration.

Dr Ramona Backhaus:

And they asked us to monitor the so reopening and we conducted interviews with… Yeah, mostly managers from these different nursing homes, the 26. And in addition, we had five locations where we did a case study to also talk to relatives and to different staff members to talk about their experiences. And we had, for example, look at the compliance, so are lot of rules that have to be considered while a relative is visiting. And what is the compliance on that? And we also had a look at what are the effects on resident’s relatives and staff members, and the pilot was successful, so we saw first that there were no new infections due to the visitors that were allowed to enter. It could also be the case that it was in local areas where the infection rate was low back then, so that should be taken into account too.

Dr Ramona Backhaus:

And we also saw a positive consequence for resident’s relatives and staff members, so we saw changes in mood and behavior of residents, but also… Yeah, positive feelings, really emotions from family members and also staff members who said, “Yeah, it was a very hard period.” And now we have to seek a balance between protecting our residents while at the same time we want them to have contact with their family members. So yeah, the pilot was successful and that’s the end of May, so two weeks later, the government decided to allow visitors in all nursing homes when they did not have any COVID infections.

Dr. Anna Volkmar:

So, hello. My name is Dr. Anna Volkmann, and I’m delighted to be your host for this week’s show. I’m sure you’ve heard from me before, but if you’re new to our podcast, I’m a research fellow and lecturer at University College London. And I also work clinically as a speech and language therapist at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, helping people living with dementia and language and communication difficulties. Now this week’s topic is particularly close to my heart. I think I say that every time, but it focuses on one of the language led dementias, namely logopenic variant, Primary Progressive Aphasia.

Dr. Anna Volkmar:

And this is a relatively rare disease, often considered an atypical Alzheimer’s type dementia and has only really been recognized in the clinical and research literature fairly recently. Logopenic variant, PPA affects specific aspects of a person’s ability to understand and communicate words and sentences and due to its recent conceptualization. There’s still a fairly limited understanding about the breadth and behavioral difficulties that people with logopenic variant, PPA face, so [Sid 00:10:07], could you tell us a bit about the history as of logopenic variant, PPA? I keep saying PPA, which is short for Primary Progressive Aphasia, but could you just tell us a little bit of the history of logopenic variant PPA as a dementia syndrome?

Dr Siddharth Ramanan:

Yeah, so it’s really interesting because before we understand where the logopenic variant of PPA came from, we have to really understand what actually constituted the definition of PPA back in the day. And how did the syndrome of PPA come into evolution. In the last about 15 to 20 years, there’s been a lot of active research in the field of PPA, but actually focal neurodegenerative disorders of language have been described even as early as 1892. In fact, they were… Arnold Pick who’s famously known for their work on fixed disease had mentioned a few patients who did show a lot of language difficulties, which sort of started out focused on language, but also evolved to eventually show a lot of behavior and other generalized cognitive impairment. And in fact, there’s been a lot of reports in the early 1900s as well of patients showing language difficulties, but again, these were not tracked well enough to understand whether the origin was actually just the language impairment per se, or was it language impairment in the context of generalized dementia, but it’s not really until the 1980s where Mesulam…

Dr. Anna Volkmar:

He’s kind of the guru. He’s the star, isn’t he of PPA?

Dr Siddharth Ramanan:

Yeah. And it’s only in the eighties when Mesulam described six cases of progressively declining language impairment in the absence of fairly… Well, in the relative absence of other cognitive difficulties that the concept of PPA actually, I mean, it took quite a lot of importance. And I think what’s interesting about the LvPPA history is that it feel like it, when you track back into the older literature, you learn that it came out of a mixed bag of a mixed PPA syndrome. So it was once Mesulam had described PPA. There was a lot of work on PPA that started emerging. And I think people really were able to understand that there are definitely two types of PPA, which is the semantic variant and the non fluent way.

Dr Siddharth Ramanan:

These were quite clear, but there were always these other patients who showed a mixture of these difficulties or difficulties that did not fit the criteria for the semantic or the non-fluent within PPA. And it’s only in that mixed bag that in about 2004, when the UCFF team led by [Mary Lukono Tempeni 00:13:17] found that there’s actually a systematic pattern of difficulties, language difficulties in within that mixed bag of patients and revisiting some of the old Mesulam descriptions. I think, it’s within this mixed bag that the idea of LvPPA came out.

Dr. Anna Volkmar:

And I guess it’s worth now, as we started talking about there being three different variants, there’s this semantic variant, which is where people lose their understanding of word meanings, and then there’s the non fluent variant where people are considered to be aphasic. So they have this effortful difficulty in producing and articulating speech and, or agrammatism, but people with logopenic variant, as Sida, you’ve mentioned, they experience very different difficulties with their language. And I wondered maybe [Shaz 00:14:18], could you explain that in a bit more detail for us?

Shalom Henderson:

Absolutely. So just adding to what Sid was just describing and what you just mentioned, Anna. I think that there are three internationally recognized variants or sub types of PPA, and one of which is logopenic PPA, and I think that it can be really contrasted from the other variants as well. And just to kind of highlight the two core features of what constitutes or work characterizes LvPPA. Those are word finding difficulty, as well as difficulty in repeating longer phrases and sentences. And a lot of neurologists, medical professionals would refer to this as auditory verbal working memory. I think speech and language therapist like to call this the chronological loop problem, where you have a chronological store, which is your ability to hold the words that you hear, and you have the articulatory process, which helps you repeat those words back in this loop fashion.

Shalom Henderson:

And I think we all can agree that many specialists, as well as researchers all say, “Oh, it’s so imperative for LvPPA to it be diagnosed early.” But as we may know, that there are many challenges to really look for these early signs in LvPAa, especially when the language symptoms are so mild and it’s so subtle, and it might take a while for patients and families to really understand that there is a problem with the individual that language functions are perhaps changing, or I think some people even wonder, “Is this normal aging, or is this a pathologically driven language change?”

Shalom Henderson:

And I think some patients might really struggle in distinguishing between those two. And based on my experience as well, a lot of the patients actually come to us for second or third opinion because previous doctors or medical staff had said, “Oh, it might be due to anxiety or depression.” So I think there is this problem while it’s so important to detect early signs and know what these early signs are, but there are also challenges in getting that early diagnosis.

Dr. Yvonne Couch:

My name is Dr. Yvonne Couch, and I am an Alzheimer’s Research UK fellow at the University of Oxford. And I’m excited to be taking a turn at hosting the Dementia Researcher Podcast. Thank you all for tuning in for this week’s two part special discussing the 2021 Alzheimer’s Research UK conference, which took place virtually this year. This was my first specialist conference. I am used to go into big ones that are just on neuroscience or gylia. So it was a totally different experience and I found the whole thing, absolutely delightful. The balance of clinical research and fundamental science is awesome.

Dr. Yvonne Couch:

And it was good to hear talks, discussing everything from careers to the problems with clinical trials, to drug discovery and design. So I’m delighted to be joined by four wonderful panelists today. We have Beth Eyre from the University of Sheffield, who you may know from her blogs on the dementia researcher website. We also welcome Dr. Lucy Russell and Dr. Aitana Sogorb Esteve, who are both research fellows at University College London, working in the Dementia Research Center. And finally, Michelle Naessens, who’s currently a research assistant at the University of Cambridge at the Centre for Frontotemporal Dementia. It was a digital conference. It was a virtual conference and I personally thought the platform was really interesting, but I wanted you ask you guys what you thought about it. So, Beth, should we start with you?

Beth Eyre:

I quite liked actually. This is my first proper virtual conference. I’ve not really had any experience with the others and I hadn’t really been to any real conferences before. So I have not been really to compare things to, so I guess that’s quite good. But I thought it was really accessible. I liked that you could chatter with the delegates. I had a couple of conversations with people and I really like the on-demand section afterwards, so if you did miss talk, because I had to miss one or two, because the things I couldn’t get out of. It’s nice to know that it’s still there and I can go and catch up on it.

Dr. Yvonne Couch:

Yeah, definitely. And Michelle, you are going to be relatively new at this whole conference game, because you are sort of much earlier in your career and then all us, old people. How did you find the platform?

Michelle Naessens:

Yeah, I really liked it. The setup was quite minimalistic, so it was quite easy to find a way, find when things were being presented, where to find the posters, so I went to AAIC in summer and I thought that platform was way more complicated and more complicated to move across because I couldn’t really find things, so I just chose to watch things on demand. And I liked this a little better. What I would’ve preferred to be there was close caption options to the videos maybe they are, but I didn’t see them. I think that would help accessibility.

Dr. Yvonne Couch:

Yeah. I only agree with you on that front. Although I do occasionally find them distracting when they start to miss, especially when people have accents when they start to mistranslate what they’re saying and then you just get distracted looking at the funny sentences that are clearly not what the person just said, but it’s done well. It’s really helpful. So Lucy and Aitana, have you done many virtual conferences over the last year? How did you find this compared to the ones that you’ve already done?

Dr. Lucy Russell:

Yeah, I’ve been to a few haven’t we? I thought it was very good on a whole, I thought that in general the platform and, well, I did have a few issues with it freezing. I don’t know if other people did on the live video.

Dr. Yvonne Couch:

Yes, definitely. Repeatedly.

Dr. Lucy Russell:

But it was a quick fix. Refreshed the screen and it was back. Perhaps in my old age, I would’ve perhaps liked a PDF of the agenda. I liked interactive the style of the agenda and the way you could bookmark the sessions that you liked. But when I first got into the conference at the start, I just wanted to have a quick glimpse through what was on and the clicking between the pages. But I mean, it was a minor thing. It’s well, perfectly well, but yeah, that would’ve been the only thing I would’ve liked.

Dr. Yvonne Couch:

Yeah. How did you find that?

Dr. Aitana Sogorb Esteve:

Yeah, I agree with Lucy. I mean, it was great and I really liked the way that you go to the day and you can see all day and you click and you are linked directly to the talk, but yeah, I missed maybe a PDF agenda as well. And also just one thing that have driven me a bit crazy is the poster notifications. So if you got any comment, you have to tag your poster because, well, maybe it’s something, it has something only happened to me, but I couldn’t get any notifications that people was asking me things in the poster and I had to check every time. But for the rest, I think it was really good.

Dr. Yvonne Couch:

Yeah. It was a nice platform. Go Lucy. You’ve got something to say.

Dr. Lucy Russell:

Yeah. Another thing I really appreciated and thank you ARUK for doing it, is the breaks. I have number of those conferences that have slammed you from like five hours at a time without a break, so I really did appreciate that, so thank you.

Dr. Yvonne Couch:

Yes. We’ve got lots of nodding from all the other panel members and I went to one earlier in the summer where they did flash presentations and don’t get me wrong. I love a flash presentation, but these were all five minute talks. They’d done it poster style, so you could barely see anything. And they did about 15 of them in one go and I got to about seven and I was like, “I don’t know what was going on. My brain hurts.” So yeah, repeated breaks. And the fact that they were half days so that you could spend the other half of the day doing science or childcare or whatever you are… Looking after your cats in the case of Selina, who’s cat, like repeatedly pops up on Twitter, which I love. But yeah, it was a really nice layer. As a new person, I really enjoyed the disturbing dating apps style matching, because I found someone who is doing stroke and vascular dementia and inflammation. I was like, “Oh, let’s be friends.” It was really childish. Michelle, did you want to leap in?

Michelle Naessens:

Yeah, there’s another thing I really like, was that the on demand session was available next day. Some conferences they wait until the whole conference is done, but especially since it was only a half day, I could just choose to watch things back the next day, which was really nice.

Dr. Yvonne Couch:

Yeah. There was plenty of space, which was lovely.

Adam Smith:

Before we start today, I just want to thank everyone who voted for us in the People’s Choice Podcast Awards. I’m delighted to say that we made it through to the finals. Judging has started and we’ll get the results on International Podcast Day on the 30th of September. There will be a link to the live stream of the awards show on our website. Although I think it’s in the US and it’s in the middle of the night, so I have to pre-record an acceptance speech, even if we don’t win and then sit up at 2:00 AM to see if we won, but thank you ever so much again, everybody that took time out to vote for us all across the world is fantastic to make the final 10.

Adam Smith:

And we really appreciate you for your continued listening and for taking that time. Thank you. So back to today’s show, hello and welcome to Dementia Researcher, a science and careers podcast for everyone, not just dementia researchers, despite the name. I’m Adam Smith, I’m the program director for the NIHR, which probably sounds much fancier than it actually is. And I’m one of the people behind this show. On this podcast, we aim to drop some knowledge on you and encourage you to discover something new about the research field you work in, or to discover something about another field and how it connects to your own because connections are important.

Adam Smith:

We also hope to provide a little support and advice to get you through all the different stages of your career from undergraduate to finally getting that tenure position that seems so far off in the distance. Today’s show.

Adam Smith:

It has to be said Scotland, considering the size of Scotland and the population, I mean, it’s massive for research compared to it, the size of its population and outputs. I feel sure is that just my impression?

Professor. Craig Ritchie:

I’m going to just jump in and I always have to preface these things. And as many of you listeners know, I actually live between London and Edinburgh for spend more time in London I’ve ever spent in Scotland. So none of what I say is hopefully going to be sounding parochial, but Scotland does have the highest per capita, higher education institution system in the world, and there’s more universities per capita and more university places per capita in Scotland than there is anywhere else in world. So I think we’re very fortunate to have a incredible backbone and infrastructure for academic activity and output. I often reflect that sometimes people say Scotland punches above its weight, but I don’t like the type of thinking about we’re punching people. I think we influence above our weight and I think that’s part of what the strategy may be able to do for not just for Scotland, but daresay for the rest of the UK and beyond.

Adam Smith:

Although given, if I remember rightly, doesn’t Scotland have the lowest life expectancy of any country in Western Europe as well? So you can see why having a policies like this are actually really important to add to the greater good or either that, or you come to Scotland, get your education, then leave. So that, clever thing to do?

Professor. Craig Ritchie:

And then go back again in my case. But I think that’s a really, really important observation because I think that’s the shame of the first statement is the observation you made in the second statement that although you have this incredible health service and incredible powerhouse of academic activity outcome, and it’s not, I don’t think it’s the whole population, I think it’s just pockets of their probation in Scotland. Are there, I say obscene relative to the rest of the country. I mean, as parts of… But also if we’re going to throw figures to each other, the highest GDP per capita of any city in the UK is not London is Edinburgh, but you go 30 miles down the road along the M8, and you have the highest levels of social deprivation in Europe.

Professor. Craig Ritchie:

No that’s not going to be fixed by a brain health strategy or a research strategy, but what it needs to do is all of these strategies have to accommodate those particular issues. We know, for instance, that the risk factors for dementia, The Lancet Commission of poor 12 risk factors if you like. Almost every single one of them accumulates in people from more deprived socioeconomic backgrounds. So if we’re to develop a brain health strategy or a dementia strategy or research strategy, it has to first and foremost to be able to address the needs of people from those communities.

Adam Smith:

And a good well delivered brain health strategy is also going to benefit in so many other ways as well, isn’t it because so many of the things that are in that Lancet Commission that will help with brain health and prevention of dementia are also the same things that you would use to have good cardiac health.

Professor. Craig Ritchie:

Exactly. But good for your brains, good for your heart.

Adam Smith:

Yeah. Well done. Somebody had to say it.

Dr. Samuel Moxon:

I’m Dr. Samuel Moxon and I’m delighted to return as the host of the dementia podcast. Our guest this week is someone whose work I’ve followed for many years. New York Time’s best selling author, Dr. Neil Barnard. Dr. Barnard has led numerous research studies investigating the effects of diet on diabetes, body, weight, and chronic pain, including a groundbreaking study of dietary interventions in type two diabetes funded by the National Institutes of Health that paved the way of viewing type two diabetes as a potentially reversible condition for many patients. And I’d like to start Alzheimer’s disease. And the simple question of it, can we do something to help prevent such a debilitating disease? And if so, what can we do with our lifestyle?

Dr. Neil Barnard:

The short answer is that there is a tremendous amount that we can do, and that’s so important because up until recently, and really still today in the minds of many people, dementia is simply a function of old age and genetics. If you got the genes, it’s just a matter of time and old age brings with it. Dementia is just part of the years going back. That is pretty clearly not the case. And there are things that research has brought us that are surprisingly and that we can implement tomorrow morning.

Dr. Samuel Moxon:

Okay, so let’s touch on that last point. Now you said something we can implement tomorrow morning. It’s quite a powerful message because it means it gives you this idea that there is something you can do and you can do it right away. So what are the specifics of that? Is it changing diet? And if so, what should we be looking to eat more of and less of?

Dr. Neil Barnard:

Yes, diet is the cornerstone. And I give the credit really to researchers in Chicago. The Chicago Health and Aging Project. They got started back in 1993 and it was an observational study where they rounded up thousands of people, they looked at dietary patterns and they looked at who succumbed to dementia. And they even factored in who had genetic risk, who didn’t. And when you put this study together with a number of other studies, the pattern is really very clear. First of all, we indict bad fat and when I say bad fat, I mean saturated fat. That’s the fat, that’s solid at room temperature. Cheese, dairy products are biggest source, meat is a big source. So if you have a diet that doesn’t have any dairy or meat in it, you are miles ahead. The risk of Alzheimer’s is probably cut to less than half.

Dr. Neil Barnard:

Probably, maybe less than a third, what it would’ve been. But it’s not just avoiding the bad stuff. It’s also bringing good things. And generally speaking, a dietary pattern based on vegetables, fruits, whole grains. And I’m going to say legumes, but that really means beans and lentils. That is a good basic pattern, and let me throw in modest amounts of nuts and seeds. 25 grams, 30 grams, nuts and seeds because they have vitamin E and people who have vitamin E not from pills, but from food. And that’s an important distinction in the research studies, they cut their risk of Alzheimer’s about 50%.

Dr. Samuel Moxon:

Wow. So just by simply eating the right things, you can hugely reduce the risk and that’s independent of genetic risk factors, like say ApoE 4, for example.

Dr. Neil Barnard:

Yes. And that is so critically important because people have rightly been concerned about this genetic trait. It’s a single genetic trait and it’s the epsilon 4 allele on the ApoE. And if you got it from both parents, you’re at 10 to 15 times the risk. So people have been very concerned. And when they get the bad findings on their test results, they get very nervous about it. Rightly so, but let me say a word. Researchers have looked at individuals who specifically had the ApoE, epsilon 4 allele, and if they were avoiding bad fats, their risk of developing Alzheimer’s was cut by over good 80% compared to people with similar genetics, But who were tucking into the cheese omelets and the animal fat and that kind of thing. And they are the problem of course, is that in our cultures in here in North America, certainly throughout Europe, up and down Britain. These high saturated fat foods are front and center and have been, but luckily there has been a huge movement for many years now to remember humble beans.

Dr. Samuel Moxon:

Dr. Allen Desmond, welcome to the Dementia Researcher Podcast. Thank you for joining us. And I’m going to start with the most important one question, which is how are you today?

Dr. Allen Desmond:

Sam. I’m good, man. I’m very good. I’m in what I usually refer to as my one hour post porridge and coffee optimum. So I had a nice bowl of porridge for breakfast earlier with a little bit of peanut butter and some fruit in there and a cup of coffee and usually about an hour after that, I’m at my optimum, so you’ve got me at my best.

Dr. Samuel Moxon:

That’s odd because I’ve had anxiety the same for breakfast.

Dr. Allen Desmond:

Oh no, really?

Dr. Samuel Moxon:

Yeah. It was like Flax seeds, Chia seeds, Soy milk, all that kind of stuff, lovely. It’s a great way to start the day.

Dr. Allen Desmond:

Yeah. So basically we’re set up to absolutely smash this conversation.

Dr. Samuel Moxon:

Yeah, it does help. You do get like a nice energy boost. I’m not sure how much of it is the coffee and how much of it is the carbs but you feel… Do you feel great?

Dr. Allen Desmond:

I certainly do. I saw some really interesting paper recently about the mood boosting potential of peanut butter. So as a big peanut butter fan, I’ve always found that after consuming peanut butter, I just get this little mood enhancement, but it’s probably just one cut all in a big machine right?

Dr. Samuel Moxon:

Especially I love MOMA Peanut Butter, which I know isn’t for everybody, but you mix a bit of B12 in there and it’s just delicious.

Dr. Allen Desmond:

Yep. Love it or hate it. I’m a fan.

Dr. Samuel Moxon:

Yeah. So, well, should we start then by you outline to our listeners that who you are and what you do?

Dr. Allen Desmond:

Oh, thanks Sam. So I’m Dr. Allen Desmond. I work in the UK National Health Service, NHS. I’m a Gastroenterologist. So I see and treat patients with significant gastrointestinal problems and in high income countries and thanks to our 21st century diet and lifestyle doctors like me are very, very busy because conditions like diverticular disease, bowel cancer, pre-cancerous polyps, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. IBS, Irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease have become so prevalent in countries like the UK, the US, Australia, Europe, that they’re almost regarded as normal, Sam. So sadly, there’s plenty of work for gastroenterologists to do. We are never not busy, but in addition to being a practicing full-time gastroenterologist, I’m also a very vocal advocate for the power of healthier approaches to food in enhancing our digestive health, helping to protect us from developing serious digestive health problems, but also helping us to improve our prognosis if we are diagnosed with a serious digestive health problem.

Dr. Allen Desmond:

And because of the experience that I have had while trying to get evidence based answers for my patients, when they ask their gastroenterologist, “What should I eat doctor?” Which every patient does because of my feeling of a duty of care that I should have evidence based answers to that question. What should I eat doctor? So all the way through my training, and particularly since I became a consultant or attending or whatever you want to call it in 2012, I’ve always been interested, finding evidence based answers to that question. So as well as reading and scouring the medical journals for all the latest information on colonoscopic techniques and polypectomy and medications, and anti TNF drugs, and biologic drugs and all those wonderful tools that we as gastroenterologists have at our disposal. I’ve always read the papers with great interest on the effect of food on our digestive health.

Dr. Allen Desmond:

What we eat is an incredibly important to determine our digestive health. A lot of that has to do with the makeup of the food, the constituents of the food, the nutritional profile of the food, but also very much to do with the effect that those foods have on our gut microbial health and although all of that science and theory is fascinating and interesting, and I love getting deep into it. For me, Sam, as a doctor who is willing to talk to his patients about food and give them evidence-based answers and encourage them to unprocessed and eat more plant-based foods as part of their management plan.

Dr. Allen Desmond:

The transformations I’ve seen and the benefits I’ve seen and the positive feedback I’ve had from my patients time and time and time again has led me to being an advocate, and that’s why we’re here to talk today. That’s why I do other interviews. I wrote a book about this last year, which came out in January. So as well as being a full time and a gastroenterologist, I’m also now an author and an advocate and an ambassador for health profess… Excuse me, Plant Based Health Professionals UK. Which is a UK based organization, which aims to educate patients, the public, healthcare providers and policy makers on the benefits of unprocessing our diet eating more plants and pushing back against the standard western diet.

Dr Megan O’Hare:

Brought to you by dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk. In association with Alzheimer’s Research UK and Alzheimer’s Society. Supporting early career dementia researchers across the world.

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